Manuals
How to create and edit manuals.
Manuals are a special content type that allows you to break down long pieces of content into sections and subsections.
They’re created in Manuals Publisher, rather than in Whitehall publisher like other pieces of GOV.UK content.
You need to ask the Government Digital Service (GDS) for permission to create a manual.
You’ll then need access to Manuals Publisher. GDS will usually give you access when you get permission to create your first manual.
If you do not have access, you need to either:
- ask your managing editor to give you access to Manuals Publisher
- if you’re the only managing editor in your organisation, use the accounts form to ask for access to Manuals Publisher
You’ll also need to ask for the ‘editor’ permission to publish the manual, or find someone in your organisation with that permission.
Creating the main page and the sections
In Manuals Publisher, click ‘Create new manual’. You’ll then have to give a title for the manual and a summary of its contents. You can add more text in the ‘Body’ section if you want to add a more detailed description.
Click ‘Save as draft’. You can then start adding sections to the manual by going to the ‘Sections’ area and clicking ‘Add’. Each section needs a title, summary and body content.
When you’ve added all the content to that section, click ‘Save as draft’ and you’ll return to the document summary page.
Keep adding sections until all your content is in the guide, and click ‘Reorder’ in the ‘Sections’ area if you want to rearrange them.
Adding Markdown and attachments
Each section heading (H2) you add to the body will show up as its own dropdown subsection, unless you tick the ‘Remove collapsible content functionality (accordions)’ box. You can use H3 and H4 sub-headings to separate out the content within each dropdown subsection.
As well as standard Markdown, you can also use additional Markdown for manuals to create legislative lists and footnotes.
You can add an inline attachment by clicking ‘Add attachment’ under the ‘Attachments’ heading. You can then upload the file you want to attach, click ‘Save attachment’ and copy the Markdown to add the inline attachment wherever you want it in your body.
Publishing the manual
You can check your manual is ready to publish by clicking ‘Preview on website (opens in new tab)’ under the ‘Preview’ heading on the document summary page.
When you’re ready, click ‘Publish’. It’s not possible to schedule the publication of a manual so it will be published immediately.
Adding organisations
Your manual will be automatically tagged to the same organisation as your Signon account.
If you want to change the organisation or tag more organisations, raise a ticket with GDS.
Adding tagging
You can only add tagging once the manual is published.
You’ll need to raise a ticket with GDS and ask them to tag the manual for you.
You’ll need access to Manuals Publisher. If you do not have access already, either:
- ask your managing editor to give you access to Manuals Publisher
- if you’re the only managing editor in your organisation, use the accounts form to ask for access to Manuals Publisher
You’ll also need to ask for the ‘editor’ permission to publish the updates, or find someone in your organisation with that permission.
The manual you want to edit must be tagged to the same organisation as your Signon account.
Updating the main page and the sections
Click ‘View’ next to the manual you want to update.
If you want to update the title, summary or body of the main page of the manual, click ‘Edit’ in the ‘Front page’ area.
If you want to update specific sections, go to the ‘Sections’ area, click ‘View’ next to the relevant section and then ‘Edit section’.
You can also add a new section by clicking ‘Add’ in the ‘Sections’ area.
If you want to rearrange the sections, click ‘Reorder’ in the ‘Sections’ area.
Adding or updating Markdown and attachments
As well as standard Markdown, you can also use additional Markdown for manuals to create legislative lists and footnotes.
You can add an inline attachment by clicking ‘Add attachment’ under the ‘Attachments’ heading on the right-hand side. You can then upload the file you want to attach, click ‘Save attachment’ and then copy the Markdown to add the inline attachment wherever you want it in your body.
You can edit an existing attachment by clicking ‘Edit attachment’ underneath the relevant attachment.
Publishing the changes
You need to save your draft updates to each section and publish them together at the same time.
If you’ve selected at least one change as a ‘Major update’, you’ll need to include change notes. Any users subscribed to the manual will get an email notification of the update, and your change notes will be added to the ‘Updates’ section of the manual.
If you’ve selected ‘Minor update’ for all your updates, no one will be notified of the update and no change note will be added to the ‘Updates’ section.
You can check your updates are ready to publish by clicking ‘Preview on website (opens in new tab)’ under the ‘Preview’ heading on the document summary page.
When you’re ready to publish, click the ‘Publish’ button on the document summary page. It’s not possible to schedule the publication so it will be published immediately.
Changing organisations
If you want to change the organisation tagged to the manual or tag more organisations, raise a ticket with GDS.
Changing tagging
You’ll need to raise a ticket with GDS and ask them to tag the manual for you.
You cannot withdraw a manual like you can for content in Whitehall publisher. Instead, you’ll need to unpublish either specific sections or the entire manual. This means they’ll be completely removed from GOV.UK.
To unpublish sections of a manual, click ‘View’ next to the relevant manual’s name and then click ‘View’ next to the section you want to unpublish. Then click ‘Withdraw section’ and ‘Publish’.
To unpublish the manual as a whole, raise a ticket with GDS and explain why the manual needs to be unpublished.